Anger as BBC moves In The Night Garden

The BBC has been inundated with complaints from angry parents of toddlers after it scrapped bedtime transmissions of In The Night Garden, one of its most popular children's shows.

Designed to relax the under-fives before bed, In The Night Garden (ITNG) is a slightly surreal series in the mould of The Magic Garden and Teletubbies, featuring chants and nonsense talk by brightly coloured characters such as Igglepiggle, Upsy Daisy and Makka Pakka.

The BBC's decision on Monday to pull the 28-minute episodes from CBeebies' Bedtime Hour - although they are still broadcast on the same channel in the mornings - has prompted outrage from parents, who have launched a petition on the Facebook website for the evening transmissions to be reinstated.

Ruth Bodycot Wood, one of more than 60 people who had signed it by yesterday afternoon, wrote: "Cbeebies are having a laugh… My four-year-old refused to believe it was bedtime because ITNG hadn't been on and it was daylight outside."

Another parent wrote: "It's a bloody outrage. Bring back In The Night Garden. We miss Igglepiggle."